In recent years, in short-range communication technologies such as Bluetooth (registered trademark; hereinafter abbreviated as BT), cases in which an NFC (near field communication) communication function is used in making a setting of communication between communication devices have come to be found.
For example, a communication system is disclosed in which a BD (Bluetooth device) address list of communication devices belonging to a BT communication group is acquired by an NFC communication (refer to JP-A-2008-153911, for example). This communication system includes an IC (integrated circuit) card and plural BT devices each incorporating an IC card reader. BD addresses which are identifiers of respective BT devices of a group in which BT communications should be performed are stored in the IC card in advance. When the IC card is placed over one BT device belonging to the group, the BT device reads the list of the group by an NFC communication. After acquiring the list of the BT communication group, the BT device inquires of nearby BT devices whether they can perform a BT communication by sending IQ (inquiry) packets to them. If finding a BT device whose BD address is included in the list of the group, the inquiry source BT device starts a BT communication with the thus-found BT device.
The above inquiry operation takes time to find nearby BT devices capable of BT communication. Furthermore, it also takes time and labor for the user to select a BT device to communicate with from a list of BT devices capable of BT communication that responded to the inquiry.